Nearly a quarter of a million Salvadorans joined the ranks of those living in extreme poverty, as a result of two major earthquakes earlier this year, the UN Development Program said Thursday.
More than half of all Salvadorans live in poverty, from 47.5 percent prior to the January 13 and February 13 earthquakes, to 51.2 percent of El Salvador's population of 6.3 million.
Some 225,000 people joined the ranks of the poor, while the situation of 200,000 others worsened from one of poverty to extreme poverty.
The quakes, which measured 7.7 and 6.1 on the Richter scale respectively, left 1,142 people dead and 1.3 million people homeless, after destroying 200,000 homes.
The cost of damage wreaked by the tragedies is more than 1.6 billion dollars, according to official figures. |
